They were the words every off-piste skier longs to hear: "You need big skis." The advice came from our guide Nick Parks and could only mean one thing: plenty of snow.
Parks was not talking about the Alps, but about Kyrgyzstan, the Central Asian ex-Soviet republic bordering China and Kazakhstan. "It's beautiful, accessible and relatively untouched," he said. A mountain adventure, deep snow and a country that Google had to locate. It wasn't difficult to convince me.
A few weeks later, after a flight via Istanbul, I found myself with a group of mostly high-achieving fifty-somethings, one with his 25-year-old son, in a modern minibus, heading east from the dull gray haze of Bishkek. We passed statues of Soviet and Kyrgyz heroes as we followed the 180 kilometer long Lake Issyk-Kul, the second largest mountain lake in the world.
Visibility improved as the quality of the asphalt decreased. On either side of the car, snow-capped mountains ran next to us - two parallel chains, 60 miles apart, separated by the glistening blue waters of the lake. They were outliers of the Tien Shan, the 'mountains of heaven' that run almost 3,000 kilometers through Central Asia.
Our destination was a yurt camp, 2,300 meters above sea level, in the Terskey-Ala-Too Mountains, located near Karakol on the eastern side of the lake. We passed Cholpon-Ata, where the traditional kok-boru game was played on horses with a goat carcass. As the afternoon wore on, I watched the low clouds cast their shadows over the sandstone ridges and gullies as the sun turned the earth the color of rust.
By the time we reached Karakol it was dark. We turned the vehicle into a 4×4 and bounced along a bumpy road until we reached the snow line. There we went out with sleepy eyes, but were awakened by a last skidoo ride to camp.
"Welcome," said Sergei, one of three local guides, as we hunkered down in the communal yurt and sat, blue-eyed, around a table. "A beer?" Yurts are an almost sacred symbol of Kyrgyzstan: the crossed center of a yurt's roof, the tunduk, is the symbol of the national flag, and they have been around for millennia. Ours had electricity, draft beer and charging points for our phones, not that there was any signal. Because the wood stove was burning, it was warmer than I was used to at home.
The story continues
In the morning we inevitably got off to a slow start. Decisions: waistcoat or down jacket? How many of my five pairs of gloves should I take with me? Where was my transmitter? It was -8ºC but a dry cold and didn't feel too threatening, especially after the sun appeared behind the pine trees and bathed the camp in light and warmth. Finally, after transceiver checks were completed, our party of seven clients, three local guides and parks departed. Known as "Papa Gna," he is something of a godfather figure in adventure ski circles, having led ski expeditions as far away as Greenland, Antarctica and Kashmir; and his stories kept coming all week.
For the next three and a half hours we enjoyed the slow and steady rhythm of the ski tourers' caterpillar train up the mountain. We saw wolf tracks in the forest. But it was the 'snow leopard' in our midst that captured our imagination. He was 34-year-old guide Artur, Kyrgyzstan's youngest recipient of the coveted Snow Leopard Prize, given to climbers who successfully scale all five 7,000-meter peaks of Soviet Russia. He is also one of the few internationally recognized IFMGA mountain guides in Kyrgyzstan - a beneficiary of a program partly supported by British instructors.
The forest gave way to open mountains and the views in all directions were spectacular. Ahead, there were peaks and untracked snow in every direction. Behind us, red sandstone cliffs, gatekeepers to thousands of years of the region's secrets, were reminiscent of the canyons of the American West. And on the horizon, 60 miles away, the snow-capped mountains separating Kyrgyzstan from Kazakhstan seemed to stretch into infinity.
At the top of a rounded 3,300-meter peak, we tore off the skins, put on the boots and switched to descent mode. The moment of truth awaited - and it was a rude shock. The snow was deep but heavy and there was a nasty top layer of crust. We struggled and fell, even Parks.
After an après BBQ platter of sausages and salty home-made fries back at camp, Artur explained where it all went wrong. "The first rule of skiing in Kyrgyzstan," he said, "you need speed." He waited a moment to let the information sink in. 'The second rule of skiing...'
He didn't have to finish his sentence, we could guess where he was going. He tried to explain that we needed speed to stay afloat and not sink.
"But how do you stop?" someone asked. "If it flattens out, at the bottom," he replied, confused by the question.
He, Sergei and the third guide Dennis came up with a plan to improve things. At a meeting that seemed to coincide with a homemade vodka tasting, they figured out where softer snow could be found. In the meantime, me and a few others went to the tent sauna for a sweat and ice dip in the stream.
And so we started day two with great expectations. It was another climb of 1,300 meters to a peak called Fuji South. Once again we tore off our skins in anticipation and dropped into the powder below. It still wasn't easy, but there wasn't the top crust layer. I remembered the advice and pointed my skis downhill, making myself go faster. I held on as long as I could before bouncing into a turn, finding the sweet spot of my skis and for a few moments it was bliss, making fresh tracks in the unmarked snow.
"I like coming here," Parks told me later. "It's not for everyone - you need good fitness and skiing skills, you have to enjoy mountain walking. But it's a great adventure."
After four days in our yurt camp we moved to the abandoned coal mining town of Jyrgalan, now a new ski resort that has benefited from some private European investment in recent years. There were two snowcats taking skiers and snowboarders up the slopes, restaurants and a few ski huts with hot showers, bunk beds and - best of all after the long descent from the yurt camp - toilets.
For our last day, Parks rented horses to take us partially up the mountain. Riding in ski boots may not have been ideal, but my pony had probably seen worse. We dismounted for our final ascent, an 800m climb chased by a stray dog and enjoyed a lovely ski all the way down to Jyrgalan's only après bar, Buchenwagen, a converted refrigeration unit.
There I met Cody Scheff, Jyrgalan's wild, fire-haired and bearded seasonal worker, who somehow ended up here from the prairies of Canada. "The snow can be absolutely amazing here," he says enthusiastically. At the bar, Sergei called my name and waved another shot glass. "This one has a chocolate flavor," he said. As is the Kyrgyz custom, we chatted and drank together.
"Kyrgyzstan is nothing like the fairytale Swiss mountains," he told me. "But this is more than a skiing experience. It's a cultural issue. And up high you don't see anyone for hundreds of kilometers. I like that."
Essentials
A 10-day trip to Kyrgyzstan with Grimentz-Zinal Backcountry Adventures (0041 76823 9281; backcountryadventures.co.uk), including eight days of guiding, accommodation, meals and drinks costs £2,600. Pegasus Airlines (flypgs.com) flies to Bishkek from London Stansted and Manchester (via Istanbul) with one-way tickets from £175.
